


too much, not enough

by starlies



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Dark Magic, F/M, Self-Sacrifice, Tragic Romance, don't you just love melodrama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 14:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10388991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlies/pseuds/starlies
Summary: In which Eliwood gives himself so that Ninian might live.





	

**Author's Note:**

> DID YOU HEAR THEY ADDED NINIAN TO HEROES
> 
> I drafted this in like December bc I wanted manakete!Ninian living into the events of fe6 and seeing Roy through the war  
> this is the prequel to that fic, which I have yet to write but hope to do so someday (!!!)

“Ninian, I love you. That will not change, no matter what may come.”

No, no, no.

_You can’t love me._

She didn’t look at him. She looked at her hands, running her fingers over her knuckles, over and over and over again. No, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

But Eliwood came closer, and she stopped breathing for a heartbeat when he held her anxious hands in his. “I don’t care what your secret is – I will still feel the same. If something troubles you, let me sweep it away.”

If only he could. If Eliwood could make her born again, born as a normal girl who could love him without heartache, who didn’t have to hide from him what she was.

His hands were warm, and the small comfort of that made her begin to weep.

“Please, don’t cry anymore,” he told her. He tilted to meet her downcast gaze with cerulean eyes. Everything was quiet, save for the whisper of her tears, and she forced herself to stay with him. For him, for his sake. “I would do anything to see you smile again. You are the first woman I have ever felt this way about, Ninian.”

And he was the first person she felt that way for. Love. A word full of promise, of light bubbly feelings that burst in her heart and melted like sugar on her tongue.

It hurt.

She’d fallen in love with a mortal man knowing she would never be able to give him the happiness he deserved.

 

* * *

 

 

Life, love. Death, life. Love once again, and perhaps as the purpose of that life she was granted.

Death and love and life and Eliwood.

She was dying.

She’d lived long enough, anyway. Her last years, however many, were best spent with him, but the way manakete lifespans lingered, who knew? A hundred years was nothing but a vapor.

There was no way she’d make it that long. Wishful thinking, that’s all it was.

But it didn’t matter. They were together now. Their time, their lives, their happiness… they would make of it what they would.

Eliwood asked her to marry him. She said yes.

She was living.

He married her in Pherae, a grand affair. She danced again – she danced with him, waltzing and laughing and spinning across a polished ballroom forever. Falling in his arms. Stealing kisses.

Loving. Living. Loving and loving and loving with all she had.

 

* * *

 

 

Morning light and sweet whispers were what she awoke to.

She laid on her side, her hair falling on the white sheets, looking at him and catching glimpses of the previous night on him: disheveled red hair where her fingers had been, pink marks on his collarbone where she’d forgotten to mind her slightly sharper teeth. His eyes shone pale blue on her.

“Ninian? Are you okay?” he asked.

She smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Just… fine?”

A laugh, quiet and short. “More than fine. I’m… I’m happy.” Because she could still feel the memory of his hips pressed against hers, their bodies intertwined. Because she was with him.

“That’s good.” He took her hand in his and pressed it against his chest. Her skin was pure and milky-white against his, freckled and sun-tanned. “I worry, sometimes… Ninian, do you… do you ever regret it?”

Regret giving up her life for the sake of loving him.

It was a question she knew he wanted to ask her every day, just to make sure she was happy with him.

“No,” she whispered. “Because my happiness isn’t bound to my life, Eliwood. I’ve lived long enough. My joy is in _you,_ in loving you… I chose you. I’d rather… I’d rather spend a measly day with my love than an eternity without.”

He was still. And then he smiled, warm and mellow like the sunrise.

“I’ll love you every moment, then. For every heartbeat, know I love you more than anything else.”

She spread her delicate fingers on his chest, beneath his hand, and felt his heart beat against her palm. There was a little part of her that was jealous of it, a little nagging voice she kept as silent as she could, reminding her that he would keep on. He had a strong, human heart, one that would likely outlive her, that would see their children grow, that would break when she inevitability died. 

He pulled her hand in closer, up to his lips, and began gently kissing at her fingers. She felt it in each peck, each nibble, each breath: I love you. A dozen I love you's, a million I love you's, more I love you's than she would ever know what to do with.

And she wished she could stay like that forever, wrapped in Eliwood and his love, without hourglass that hanging over her head, her life trapped within and slipping to the bottom.

It touched all their rose-colored moments, that blackness around the edges of her mind’s eye. It would be worse if she hadn’t come live with him, she thought. The blackness would be regret, and it would devour her.

The blackness was death, and was only the natural side effect to life.         

 

* * *

 

Red hair, blue eyes.

Blue hair, red eyes.

She wondered if the child within her would be the mix of the two, all red or all blue, all fire or all ice.

All human, or all wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

Roy looked almost exactly like his father and Ninian thanked the gods.

He’d grow up a normal boy. He’d live a normal life. He’d live happier than his father and longer than his mother.

It was a miracle he’d been born healthy in the first place.

So when she first met him, she kissed his forehead, and cried endlessly.

 

* * *

 

 

It was springtime, and Roy was a year old. Rebecca was the wet nurse who tended to him and her son, Wolt, in the nursery, but Ninian spent as much time as she could with him. As much time as she had.

Today, it wasn’t Rebecca with the children, but a maid. She made small talk with Ninian – how nice the weather has been lately, how Roy and Wolt were growing well, and did you go out to town with Lord Eliwood yesterday?

And Ninian said she didn’t know that her husband left the castle yesterday. That she didn’t see him for most of the day but assumed it was because he was busy with official matters, as the marquess.

But no, he went to town with Sir Marcus. To a fortune teller, apparently, but what sense did that make? Those silly young servant girls spreading baseless rumors. What use did their marquess have for an oracle?

Ninian laughed it off and said he probably just wanted to get away from the castle for a while, but her stomach tied itself in a knot. She felt ill.

Mages and healers were one thing. Witch doctors and fortune tellers were another.

Healers visited on the days when Ninian’s body weakened. Healers tried their best and promised she’d improve, that the dizzy spells and fatigue would lessen with time even though she knew it was a lie. They were kind, at least.

Witch doctors and fortune tellers were not. They knew more than they should and used it to their advantage. They pretended to do good, but caused more trouble than they were worth with black magic and potions and transfigurations and enchantments. Ninian had lived long enough to see this. She knew this. She knew better than to turn to fell arts when one was scared.

Eliwood did not.

Eliwood was a knight, he was her knight. And he would do anything if it meant giving Ninian a chance at life and happiness.

 

* * *

 

 

“Eliwood… you didn’t go see a witch doctor yesterday, did you?” Ninian asked him that evening when he returned to their quarters. She waited for him, not curled up in bed but sitting in the lounge, her hands folded in her lap.

Her husband sighed as he took a seat beside her on the sofa. “I did.”

“Why?”

He took her hand in his own. Warm. His hands were so warm against hers, cold and dry and fragile. “I asked about us, that was all – about what the future has in store.”

“…Eliwood, you know… that I’m not… I’m not going to get better, and so there isn’t…” And she stopped herself there, because she didn’t like reminding herself that _there was no future for them, only now, only whatever measly days the gods decided to allow her._ “Just promise me you won’t go to black magic for some solution to it. I’m happy, Eliwood. It isn’t worth it to turn to them for help – the doctors are doing well.”

He opened his mouth – as if he didn’t expect it – and then settled into a smile. “Ninian, no… that’s not why I sought out a fortune teller. I only asked about us because I was curious… about our children. About Roy’s siblings.”

Even though they were alone, Ninian blushed.

“Do you want to? Make Roy a big brother, I mean.”

“I…” She met his eyes, slowly, shyly, as if he was still courting her. “I’m not sure this sofa is exactly comfortable for it…”

And so Eliwood laughed. “You’re right,” he said, and scooped her up into his arms, which made her giggle against his ear. She curled up against him as he carried her to bed, her arms around his neck, her cheek against his chest, absorbed in love.

 

* * *

 

 

That was the first and only time that Eliwood ever lied to her.

 

* * *

 

 

Ninian had another dizzy spell in the next week and was prescribed bed rest again. “I’m fine,” she told Eliwood, again and again, though the distant look in his eyes told her he didn’t believe her. He knew, and she knew, that her condition wasn’t improving. That her fragility was permanent. That she was deteriorating.

He disappeared after that.

While the castle staff was in a panic, Ninian remained calm. He was probably off to Etruria to ask upon their gifted healers, or to Araphen to ask their old friend Lucius about her condition, to see if there was anything they could do. That was Eliwood, warmhearted and noble.

Three days later, he returned with a flower.

So he hadn’t gone for help at all, but for a token.

“I know that white lilies are your favorite,” he said, bringing the snow-white blossom to her bed. “And though they grow in the mountains… I wanted to see you smile again, Ninian.”

And she did smile, taking the flower gently in her hands and looking into its circle fine-spun petals. “Thank you,” she told him. For a single breath of joy, he’d done so much, gone so far. “I love it. I… it means so much to me.”

He covered her hands with his and leaned over to face her. She looked up at him, over the lily blossom and into his eyes, blue like starfire.

In that moment, time stopped.

“I love you, Ninian,” he said.

And in the next moment, Ninian realized that his words were not words, but an incantation.

Because the flower in her hands burned up in sky blue flames and swallowed her arms and body and melted into her skin and it felt so _hot_ and then warm and then

nothing.

It was done.

Her body no longer felt weak, as if the vitality she’d lost years ago was suddenly imbued back into her heart.

And as a consequence, Eliwood’s was gone.

His face turned ashen as he collapsed on the bed and rolled off onto the floor while Ninian screamed. She leaped from her spot – so mobile now, so capable – and fell down over him, her silken hair spilling onto his limp body as she hovered over him.

“Eliwood… Eliwood!” she sobbed, choking on her own words. “What… what did you do?”

He didn’t reply. Didn’t stir.

And she knew.

He’d lied about the witch doctor, because someone had to have enchanted that flower. Charmed it into handing whatever was left of Eliwood’s life over to his wife on the word of love.

“I didn’t… I didn’t want this!” She could barely see anything, her vision blurred with tears. “Why… Eliwood… why did you give…”

Because he loved her, he’d sacrificed everything so she might live.

No.

No no no no no.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to be, they were supposed to make what they could out of what they had, she’d already prepared herself to die. Already accepted it.

And now she would live.

Noble Eliwood, taking matters into his own hands to save her when he realized she wouldn’t last another year… but miracles always came at a cost. Equivalent exchange. A life for a life.

What was the point?

She chose to live with Eliwood because she loved him, but he…

He gave her an entire life at the cost of their love together, without considering she preferred the latter.

All ice, no fire.

Death and life and no Eliwood and no warmth and no love.

 

* * *

 

 

He gave his life to her, and so Eliwood became a part of her, the fire that kept her heart beating, that kept her functioning after his sacrifice.

It was Eliwood that gave her the strength to arrange her husband’s funeral. It was Eliwood that gave her the strength to accept her right by marriage and take on the title of Lady Ninian, Marquess of Pherae.

He gave her the strength to put the golden crown on her head and face the other members of the Lycian League as their peer. In particular, the broad-shouldered man with cold, midnight-blue eyes that seemed ready to cleave the castle in two.

Hector pulled her aside after the ascension. “Ninian… I’m sorry.”

His gaze was pensive, caught between emotion. He didn’t say any more than that.

“…He loved you very much, Lord Hector,” Ninian told him. “He loved… he loved so much.” She stopped herself. This was a formal affair, and anything in the way of a catharsis would be inappropriate.

Ninian wasn’t much for reading emotion, but by the way Hector’s fist clenched at his side, she could tell something about it angered him.

“…It was sudden. I never thought… he would just leave us like that.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth, either, she told him. Something to console a broken heart.

But Hector reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a note and unfolded it before Ninian. “He explained everything to me,” he said, and she noticed the familiar handwriting on the paper. “He said he felt that I deserved to know why he chose to die. I was halfway here… I was in a village in Caelin when word already spread that Marquess Pherae had died. I wasn’t able to stop him.”

The fire burned at Ninian’s chest, at her eyes. _If only you could have stopped him._ That was what he wanted to confess.

“I didn’t want…”

“Eliwood _loved_. He loved everyone, but what did he choose in the end?”

_I didn’t want him to make that choice._

“He loved you more than anything.”

Red, puffy eyes slid up to him over her husband’s note between them. “I know. He told me… when he did it. That was the spell: ‘I love you’. And then it… he gave… he gave me what I desired least in the world. A life without him.”

Hector frowned, his lips tight, his gaze stone-cold. “He sacrificed himself out of devotion to _you_ , Ninian. Don’t waste his gift, or I’ll never forgive you. I’ll never forgive you for taking his life.”

 

* * *

 

 

There were still remnants of Eliwood in this world.

He was in her – his life had gone to her.

And he was in Roy.

So she spent every moment she could with him, every moment she didn’t spend tending to the duties Eliwood left behind as the late marquess. She told him stories of her homeland, sang to him songs in the dragon tongue. She taught him to dance. She told him of his father, of the man he was and how much Roy resembled him and how one day, Roy would be a great hero like him.

She saw him in his ginger hair, in his freckles, in his bright blue eyes. In his gentle spirit. In his nobility. In his fortitude. Roy was growing up to be like his father, the father he barely met, who was little more than stories on his ears.

She missed him more than anything. There was a hole in her life now, a gap that wouldn’t be filled as long as she lived.

But Roy, the son they had together… he was here. He was living.

Perhaps that was the consolation, that she got to watch their son grow up.

So as much as she ached for Eliwood every day, when she saw the young boy who flung his arms around her waist and called her “mama”, she smiled. And she was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> btw sorry hector is kind of a butt
> 
> the flower thing is taken from that one support (between Lilina and Marcus I think?) where Eliwood travels to bring his wife the flower she likes


End file.
